REMEMBERING SCHWARZKOPF,NORMAN - EVIDENCE FOR 2 DISTINCT LONG-TERM FACT LEARNING-MECHANISMS

We report two patients who showed distinctive and contrasting patterns of performance relating to their ability to remember new facts. A pat ient who sustained a missile injury to the mammillary bodies four year s previously was left with a marked memory disorder. He nevertheless s howed evidence of having acquired long-term factual knowledge-e.g. he accurately recalled information about Norman Schwarzkopf-in spite of s evere deficits on a matched test of name-occupation learning that was administered as a standard paired-associate learning test. By contrast , a patient who suffered bilateral non-medial temporal lobe pathology 10 years previously showed the reverse pattern of performance-he could not identify names such as Norman Schwarzkopf, but he performed well on the matched name-occupation learning test. These data point to two anatomically distinct and functionally dissociable long-term fact lear ning mechanisms, one that is primarily subserved by limbic-diencephali c structures and one that is primarily based in the neocortex.